Who will shine as the top young rider at the Tour de France 2017? This is the battle for the white jersey and this gets awarded to the young rider who has amassed the most points in the combination classification. That means the performances in the overall, the points and the climbing competitions are all taken into consideration for this one. Since 2000 the white jersey has been awarded (after it was stopped being handed out for a while) and this classification is open to any cyclist that is under 26 years old at January 1st of the year following that Tour.
Britain’s Adam Yates stepped up to the plate and won this title last year and we have seen some famous names get their hands on it in the recent editions of the Tour de France. Nairo Quintana has won two of the last four editions of the Young Rider and Thibaut Pinot picked up in 2014. Obviously, age is going to knock players out of this and both Pinot and Quintana have dropped from this classification because of age.
But Simon Yates (twin brother of Adam Yates) is there at the head of the betting this year at 11/8 with Ladbrokes, and he has to be in with a very good chance. Yates is a joint principal rider with Esteban Chavez for Orica-Scott and so the team are going to be pushing his chances here and the Brit can target the White Jersey hard in this one. He has decent form with a top ten finish in the Paris-Nice and a second place in the Tour de Romandie. He took a 13th place finish at the Criterium du Dauphine as well. The team has changed his schedule to get ready for this.
Therefore Yates can beat out the odds-on favourite Louis Meintjes (10/11 at Ladbrokes) to take the title and that would leave Emanuel Buchmann back in the pecking order at around 8/1. It should all boil down to one of these three at the end of the day and the Brit looks fantastic value. Really there’s no reason why Yates can’t get a podium finish in the general classification.
Tour de France 2017 young rider betting odds
Louis Meintjes 10/11, Simon Yates 11/8, Emanuel Buchmann 6/1, Piette Latour 14/1, Guillaume Martin 25/1, bar 40/1
Register an account with online betting site Ladbrokes and earn a free £50 bet as a welcome bonus from them. Just follow our links to get signed up and then after making your initial deposit, place your first stake on the new account and the bookmaker will match the value of it up to the maximum value of a £50 free bet. Just register using the promo code F50 and there is a limit of one free bet per customer.
